The Oxygen Of Attention

Stephen Fry mentioned it many years ago as a means of not only deflating Donald Trump but everyone like him, the self important that survive on the energy that attention gives them.

.. Trump is the most talked about man in history, every single restaurant table, every single bar room, every single coffeeshop conversation you can just hear the word Trump Trump Trump. 

He's the Trumpallo, he's like a Dr Seus character, the more you say his name the bigger he gets.

All you have to do to defeat him is never mention his name.

I have failed with this and other posts, but I think I'm gonna do just that. For my own sanity, I'm just never going to talk about him, no matter what happens from tomorrow on - I just don't need him in my life. If we all did that he would deflate like a balloon after the party lights have long been turned off.

I also recalled a quote from Adolf Hitler:

“It makes no difference whatever whether they laugh at us or revile us … whether they represent us as clowns or criminals; the main thing is that they mention us, that they concern themselves with us again and again …”

It's taken me ages to find it but here it is, Everyone laughed at Hitler in the 1920s. A century on, are we making the same mistake? (April 2024).

I have noticed in the past few days that both the Guardian and Stuff news sites have failed and fallen to supplying the oxygen of attention.

I don't mean don't report, but not make themselves unwitting mouthpieces of the Trump campaign by keeping his name in lights and only cursorily mentioning Kamal Harris.

When Harris took over from Joe Biden the world's media was flooded with her name and the affect it had was so positive and uplifting. Those times have faded away. Trump fights tooth and nail to make headlines, he'll say anything, and it works.

So much so that the other day the Washington Post abdicated itself from the future, potentially allowing democracy to die in the dark.